The most recent Internal Revenue Service data back opponents' claims. In 2001, out of 2,363,100 total adult deaths, only 49,911 -- 2.1 percent -- had estates large enough to be hit by the estate tax. That was down from 2.3 percent in 1999. The value of the taxed estates in 2001 averaged nearly $2.7 million.
By then, Soldano's Policy and Taxation Group was spending more than $250,000 a year on lobbying. A parade of small-business owners and family farmers appealed to their congressmen, worried that they could not pass on their enterprises to their children, even though most of them would not be affected by the tax.
"There's been a sustained, determined campaign of misinformation that in the end has left the American people with a very different notion of what the estate tax is and does than actually exists," Pomeroy said.
But ultimately, whether people believe the estate tax will affect them has little bearing on support for repeal. Early this year, with Soldano's money, Luntz again began polling, this time in the face of record budget deficits and lingering economic unease. More than 80 percent called the taxation of inheritances "extreme." About 64 percent said they favored "death tax" repeal. Support fell to a still-strong 56 percent when asked whether they favored repeal, even if it temporarily boosted the budget deficit.
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